Paul Gauguin

Gauguin and Degas met through their mutual friend Camille Pissarro around 1879. Fifteen years his junior, Gauguin had a strong admiration for Degas's abilities. Gauguin collected as much of Degas' work as he could afford, valuing its presence so much as to take it to Tahiti when he traveled there. Conversely, Degas took a fatherly interest in the struggling Gauguin and purchased many of his woodcuts and paintings at sales held to finance his trips. Degas also used his professional influence to arrange for exhibitions of Gauguin’s work upon his return.

This tentative sketchbook sheet, created around the time of Degas’s Six Friends at Dieppe (Gauguin, in fact, saw Degas in Dieppe in September of 1885), likely portrays Gauguin’s children and comes from the collection of his son, Pola.